Őszöd speech
Gyurcsány speaking at a party congress in 2006 (not the actual speech) | |
| Date | 26 May 2006 |
|---|---|
| Duration | 27 minutes |
| Location | Balatonőszöd, Hungary |
| Type | Speech |
The Őszöd speech (Hungarian: Őszödi beszéd) was a speech Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány delivered to the 2006 Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) congress in Balatonőszöd. Though the May congress was confidential, Gyurcsány's address was leaked and broadcast by Magyar Rádió on Sunday, 17 September 2006, igniting a nationwide political crisis.
Liberally using vulgar language, Gyurcsány criticized MSZP for misleading the electorate and said that its coalition government had enacted no significant measures over its tenure. The mass protests the speech's release precipitated are considered a major turning point in Hungary's post-communist political history. MSZP's inability to contain the speech's political fallout led to the popular collapse of MSZP and, more broadly considered, of the Hungarian political left, paving the way for Fidesz's supermajority victory in the 2010 Hungarian parliamentary elections.